tion of mine Mr. Marth has thought fit to notice, in page 153 of his Notes to Ch. vi. Sect. 171. of Michaelis's Introducton, as a question started" Whether StJas, who is mentioned in feveral places of the Acts, he not the same perfn with the Evangel ft Luke." And, as he states the fimilanty of Deaning of those two names to be the only argument urgen in defence of the affirmative, it is plain he had not read the two passages quoted above: for, if he had, he must have known, that the fimilarity of meaning of the two names was not mentioned by me as an argument for their denoting the fame perfor; but merely o account for the writers of the fecond and third centuries calling the autho Luke, though in his own History he cails homself sils. And furely there is no improbability in fuopoing, that, after Silas had written that History, the perfecи. tion inftituted by Nero, or tome other fuch caufe, might have induced him, from prudential confiderations, to adopt another name, which, though of different foun 's to the Romans and Greeks, might equally correfpond to his original name in Hebrew: a circumstance, which would account for his being called by the latt adopted nameby Chriftians of the fucceeding centuries. Should this letter to you, Sir, be feen by the very learned and candid tranflator and annotator of Michaelis, I trust he will do me the justice o perute what I really have advanced in proot of this important, though fo long unnoticed, matter of fact, I beg him alfo to confider, that, though there may be tome inst nces of refpectable hiftorians of transactions in which they themselves have b en personally concerned, who have written in the fift perfon, and many more of those who have written of themtelves in the third perton, not a single instance can be produced of any fuch wi ter, who does not speak of hinteif in one or the other of those perfons; and that it is abfolutely impoffible for any faithful, accurare witer of hiftory to be guilty of fuch an om rion. Yet, according to the hypothesis of Mefirs. Marth and Mich elis, the Acts of the Apofiles afford a foli tary initance of fuch an unfaithful inaccutate h itor an. For it reprefents the author avowing his conviction of having, at Troas, received a fuper-natural commiffin fron the Deity to preach the Gospel in Macedonia, in affociation with Paul, Silas, and Timotheus; and having accompani d them for that purpole to PhiPppi, and been an idle witness, to use the words of St. Paul, of the " ib. meful treat ment" of him and Silas by the Philippians, withdrawing himself from that affociated commission, on which God had fent him; remaining in that city, contrary to every degree of probability, after Paul and Si las had been miraculously released from prifon, and induced, by the request of the magiftrates, to quit it, with Timotheus; after an abfence of three years, joining his former affociates again during their fe cond visit to Macedoria and Greece, and then continuing with St. Paul to the final period of the hiftory, without once mentioning his own name, either in the first or third perfon; faving when or where he joined St. Paul, either in Afia or Greece, or why he left him at Philippi, or record. ing a fingle thing that he did or fuffered in the execution of that divine commission, which he acknowledges he received; whilft, at the fame time, their hypothetis repre fents Paul himself to have been to unrea. fonably capricious and inconfitent as to feparate from his first refpectable affociare, Barnabas, rather than admit the company of Mark, because he had left thein before, and refused to go with them in a voluntary excursion on the business of the Gofpel, and yet to re-admit this ideal Luke, after so scandalous a defertion of the on which they had been jointly fent by Heaven, and after so long a feparation from them, and to continue affociated with him to the end of this hiftory!!! work The truth is, that this hiftory is minute. ly particular in recounting all the Apostle's affociates at different times and places; and that, according to the express words of the narration, no perfon was in company with Paul at Troas befides Silas and Timotheus. Indeed these learned critics do not pretend, that there exifts any do cument to warrant their affertion, that a fourth perfon of the name of Luke was with them there. But they choose to fer it, without any authority, merely because they find themselves at a loss to account for Silas, if he was the author, speaking of himself fometimes in the third perion, and fometimes in the firit plural (for in the firit perfon fingular he never speaks). Yet, it feems eafy to account for, if we confider-1. that the heavenly delegation, in which he was included, authorised rather more felf-importance, than he had ever before affumed; and 2. that it was the most co cife way in which he could fpeak of the whole affociared com miffion; and both from this hiftory, and from St. Paul's Epities to the Converts of Corinth and Theffalonica, pa ticularly fron from 2 Cor. v. 19. that association an- Lympston, Sept. 1, 1802. its publication. Mine is not an Abridgment of Harwood, nor can it be confidered as at all buil upon the plan of it: I have called it, "in Part, a Tabulated Arrangement from Dr. Harwood's View," &c. but, I apprehend, very few of its readers will conce ve it analogous to Dr. Harwood's work. Probably your Correfpondent has noticed the infertion of my work in your Magazine for October, as alrealy published. Of the work which your Correfpondent notices in the Magazine for July, 1800, I am wholly ignorant, nor have I heard of Permit me, Sir, through the medium of your refpectable Magazine, to correct an error which has taken place relating to the London publishers of the work:--By two or three London papers, it has appeared, as if Dwyer only was the publishr; whereas, in fact, my principal publithers(and who have a larger intereft in the work) are Egerton, Faulder, Payne, Robinfons, &c. &c. It is but due to these gentlemen, that this fact should be made public; and I know not how I could have embraced a more feasonable opportunity of doing't, than by trefpaffing on your kindness in caufing this letter to be inferted in your Magazine. 08. 5, 1802. T. F. DIBDIN. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. N SIR, OVEMBER 1, 1801, p. 285. Cu- of Peter Wilkins was Robert Paltock, of Feb. 22, 1802.
re LIBERNATUS. AVING frequently derived much information refpecting what is go. ing forward in the scientific and literary world, from your publication, I generally turn over its pages with attention: it was therefore natural, that I should be much ftruck with the curious account of Dr. Gall's Craniofcopical Lectures, which was given in your Magazine for October. I fuppofe we may rely upon the information afforded afforded us by the writer of that article, fo far as relates to the Lectures of the Gentleman at Vienna; but, when he fpeaks of the collection of the celebrated Göttingen Profeffor, BLUMENBACH, there is an ambiguity of expreffion, the probable effects of which it is the object of this letter to remove and this I shallattempt, without pretending to determine, whether the ambiguity itself is the refult of accident, or of design. When mentioning Blumenbach's collection, the writer makes use of this language:" From a comparative examination of these various skulls, the Profeffor has drawn important refults relative to the different races and tribes into which mankind are divided. An attentive examination of this fine collection almost convinces the spectator, that, at the beginning, there must have been feveral criginal Hocks, whence the various races of man bave sprung." Now, what is the idea that will most naturally present itself to the mind of a reader on the perufal of this paffage? Is it, that the curfory examiner of this collection would, at a first view, be convinced there must have been feveral original stocks? Or is it, that, not merely the occasional spectator, but Blumenbach himself, from a careful comparative examination of these tkulls, has been led, among his " important results," to adopt the fame opinion? The latter appeared to others, as well as myself, to be the natural fcope of the passage. Be this, however, as it may, I trust it will not be thought improper, if I shew, from Blumenbach's late writings, that, whatever may be the inferences drawn by any spectator from a view of his collection, the Profeffor's decided opinion is completely in unifon with that fuggefted in the Mofaic History of the origin of Man. In the Magazin für das Neueste aus der Physik, vol. iv. this eminent phyfiologift has given Observations on the Bodily Conformation, and Mental Capacity, of the Negroes; in which he has affigned various reafons, which convince him of the truth of the two following propositions:"That between one Negroe and another there is as much (if not more) difference in the colour, and particularly in the linements of the face, as between many real Negroes, and other varieties of the human fpecies. 2. That the Negroes, in regard to their mental faculties and capacity, are not inferior to the rest of the human race." He fays, The three Negro fou'ls, which I have now before me, afford, by the very ftriking gradation with which the lineaments pass from the one to the other, a very evident proof of the first propofition." And, after affigning many other reasons on this point, he proceeds to the next, and says, " The teftimonies and examples, which serve to prove the truth of the second propofition, respecting the mental faculties, natural talents, and ingenuity of the Negroes, are equally numerous and incontrovertible." Many of these are enumerated. In the fixtlt volume of the same work, the Profeffor enters more minutely and fully into the fubject: he there lays down what may very properly be called "important refults:" he adduces cogent and intelligible arguments to shew the weakness of the popular objection against the opinion, that there was but one original stock-arguments, which I will venture to say, must carry conviction to the minds of all who are not the victims of a lamentable and invincible prejudic His mode of argumentation thall be stated as briefly as poflible: "Some lare writers on Natural History (fays Blumenbach) leem doubtful, whether the numerous dittinct races of men ought to be confidered as mere varieties, which have arifen from degeneration; or, as so many species altogether different. The cause of this feems chiefly to be, that they took too narrow a view in their researches; felected, perhaps, two races the most different from each other poffible, and, overlooking the intermediate races that formed the connecting links between them, compared these two together; or, they fixed their attention too much on man, without examining other species of animals, and comparing their varieties and degeneration with those of the human species. The first fault is, when one, for example, places together a Senegal Negro and an European Adonis, and at the fame time forgets that there is not one of the bodily differences of these two beings, whether hair, colour, features, &c. which does not gradually run into the fame thing of the other, by fuch a variety of shades, that no phyfiologift or naturalist is able to establish a certain boundary between these gradations, and confequent. ly between the extremes themselves. The fecond fault is, when people realon as if man were the only organized being in nature, and confider the varieties in his species to be ftrange and problematical, without reflecting that all these varieties are not more ftriking, or more uncommon, than those with which fo many thousands of other species of organized beings degenerate, as it were, before our eyes. As my my Obfervations respecting the Bodily remarked with regard to the swine in : Conformation, and Mental Capacity, of the Negroes, may ferve to warn mankind against the first error, and, at the fame time, to refute it, I shall here offer a few remarks to refute the false conclusion, which might be formed from a careless comparison of the degenerations among the human race with the varieties among other animals, and for that purpose shall draw a comparison between the human race, and that of swine." After stating his reasons for choofing fwine as the most suitable object of this comparison with man-as, that both are domestic animals, both omnivora, both difperied throughout the four quarters of the world, and both exposed, confequently, to the principal caufes of degeneration, both fubject to many diseases rarely, if ever, found among other animals than men and swine, &c. he goes on thus :"All the varieties through which this animal has degenerated, belong, with the original European race, to one and the same species; and fince no bodily difference is found in the human race, either in regard to stature, colour, the form of the cranium, &c. which is not observed in the fame proportion among the swine race, while no one, on that account, ever doubts, that all these different kinds are merely varieties that have arisen from degeneration through the influence of climate, &c. This comparison, it is to be hoped, will filence those sceptics, who have thought proper, on account of these varieties in the human race, to admit more than one species." The Profeffor then arranges his Obfervations on the Differences in the Human Race under three heads: 1. In regard to Stature. 2. In regard to Colour, and the nature of the Hair. 3. In regard to the form of the Cranium. From the last head, I extract the following paffage :"The whole difference between the cranium of a Negro, and that of an European, is not in the least degree greater, than that equally striking difference which exists between the cranium of the wild boar, and that of the domeftic swine. Those who have not observed this in the animals themselves, need only to cast their eye on the figure which Daubenton has given of both. I shall pass over less national varieties, which may be found among swine as well as among men, and only mention, that I have been affured by Mr. Sulzer, that the peculiarity of having the bone of the leg remarkably long, as is the cafe among the Hindoos, has been Normandy. They stand very long on their hind legs (fays he, in one of his letters); their back, therefore, is highest at the rump, forming a kind of inclined plane; and the head proceeds in the fame direction, so that the snout is not far from the ground.-I shall here add, that the swine, in some countries, have degenerated into races, which in fingularity far exceed every thing that has been found strange in bodily variety among the human race. Swine with folid hoofs were known to the ancients, and large herds of them are found in Hungary, Sweden, &c. In the like manner, the European swine, first carried by the Spaniards, in 1509, to the island of Cuba, at that time celebrated for its pearl-fishery degenerated into a monstrous race, with hoofs which were half a span in length." I am afraid the preceding extracts will by no means give the full force to Profeffor Blumenbach's Obfervations: but as I am unwilling to trespass farther upon the limits of your Magazine, I dare not enlarge. I am happy, however, to say, that tranflations of both the Profeffor's papers are inserted in the third volume of the Philofophical Magazine; and to these I refer with confidence, having no doubts as to the effects they will produce on the mind of every ingenuous inquirer inquirer after truth. Cambridge, Νου. 4, 1802. OLINTHUS GREGORY. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. H SIR, AVING lately inspected a number of very fplendid and highly finished pictures, in the collection of a friend, representing various Deities of Hindostan, Emperors, Queens, and celebrated Warriors; I was surprised to find that the Indian artist (for those pictures were all the production of Bengal pencils) had encir. cled the head of every facred and illuftrious perfonage with a golden glory, exactly fuch as our Scripture-painters diftinguith their Saints with, and fuch as we perceive in the illuminated missals used in the Romish Churches three or four centuries ago. Now, whether the fame idea ftruck the European and the Afiatic artist, or whe ther the one borrowed it from the other, and with which it originated, would afford, in my opinion, a curious subject for inquiry. Ολ. 6, 1802. P. Q. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, N the Biographies of Goldsmith, it is The academy near town in which Dr. He played frequently, but indifferently, on "In rate-in his behaviour unafuming; and the young gentiemen were never fo happy as when they could get him on a-winter's evening to teli them anecdotes, with which his mind was weli stored. But alas! he rever was an economist Out of his scanty falary of twenty pounds a year, he frequently gave to penons in distressmaking a point of never fending a poor author away without half a crown! He had not a few of thefe latter applications. Hence it was that he generally applied for his falary before it came due; and one day, upen an application of the kind to Mrs. Milner, the smiling faid-" You had better, Mr. Goldfinith, let me keep your money for you as I do for fome of the young gentlemen;" to which he replied, with great good humour, truth, Madain, there is equal need," and pleafantly walked awav. Upon his leaving Peckham, he fubfifted on what his talents brought him as a writer; and once a relation of Dr. Milner being in company with him, he told him that Lord Bute had folicited the aid of his pen-but that his reply was" I will prostitute my talents to no man!" The lady to whom I am indebted for these particulars, alfo informed me, that her brother, the late Dr. Milner, for many years a refpectable physician at Maidstone, once called on Goldfmith at the Temple, where he had very genteel lodgings, and a confiderable library. But he was afterwards obliged to part with them on account of pecuniary embarrafsiments. Indeed he was, like too many other literary characters, often straitened in circumstances, through an entire want of that humble but most effential virtue, economy. Such, Mr. Editor, are the particulars which I have obtained relative to the late Dr. Goldsmith. On their authenticity you may rely: therefore, where they coincide with the facts already recorded in the Lives of him, they add a degree of confirmation; and whatever is new, muft gratify our curiofity. To ordinary readers they may appear trivial, whilft by others they may be deemed of fome importance, as referring to an individual, from whose writings they have derived no finall portion of entertainment and inftruction. Should this imperfect commu nication to your valuable Mifcellany, prove the means of fnatching only one trait of fo excellent an author from obli vion, the trouble I have taken will be abundantly compenfated. I remain, Sir, yours, &c. Pullen's row, Islington, JOHN EVANS. To |